Posted
by
Unknown Lamer
on Wednesday July 24, 2013 @09:33AM
from the industry-pirates dept.

New submitter duSoliel wrote in with news that another musician is complaining about a lack of royalties from streaming music services. This time, however, the musician is going after MediaNet (once known as MusicNet) which acts as an intermediary source for licensing songs to streaming music services that did not manage to gain compulsory licensing from the Copyright Royalty Board. MediaNet has a storied history riddled with lawsuits from the Harry Fox agency among others; a suit brought last year alleged that around a quarter of MediaNet's catalog was improperly licensed, but was settled privately out of court. Now, Aimee Mann is suing them
for failure to properly license 120 of her songs, seeking $18 million in damages. From the article: "... she entered into a license agreement in 2003 with MediaNet (then known as MusicNet). The term of the license agreement was scheduled to end in 2006 but had automatic two-year extensions unless terminated by either party. Mann's representative is said to have sent a termination notice in 2005, but nevertheless, 'MediaNet continued after the Termination Date to transmit, perform, reproduce and distribute the Compositions as part of MediaNet's service, despite having no right or license to do so.' ... Besides suing for direct infringement, Mann is also claiming that MediaNet induced its business partners to commit copyright infringement. Mann also says she has not been paid any royalties by the company since Sept. 30, 2005 with the exception of a $20 advance this past March that was returned."
The perils of not having sane compulsory licensing for Internet radio?

I'm sorry but copyrights as designed by the founding fathers was a GOOD thing, it allowed the little guy to make enough to live on while keeping the large cartels from just snatching everything that wasn't nailed down. what we have now is the exact opposite, a system which favors those very same cartels and screws the little guy, just look at the "standard record contract" which is just a damned joke its pathetic to see how badly things have been tilted towards the cartels.

So what we need is NOT to abolish it but reform it, starting with putting copyright terms back to the original 25 years so that the cartels can't lock down our history behind paywalls, remove the ability to sell your copyrights, if the cartels want to lease the rights that is fine but what has happened is the record contracts now force the artist to give away their songs just to be heard so the ability to take someone's copyrights away should be removed, and once the copyright term is up the formerly copyrighted work shall be put in a large repository on the web free for all to use to enjoy and create more art.

If we were to do this frankly copyrights wouldn't be something everybody bitched about anymore, why you'd have all the great music of the first 80 years of the twentieth century to use in new projects, the artists wouldn't be forced to sign everything away, and the cartels wouldn't have our entire recorded history locked behind paywalls, it would be great.

Sadly our system is so corrupted and ruined by big money that I truly believe that only a total collapse will bring about any chance for change so until then I say until We, The People get a seat at the negotiating table you should treat copyright laws as what they are, laws bought with bribes and therefor null and void. Does ANYBODY believe the people would have voted for 150+ year copyrights? Or that copyrights would last nearly a century after the creator of the work has died? Of course not but the people didn't get a say, the cartels, especially Disney, just broke out their checkbook and bribed their way into having the laws changed. This is why they should be ignored, as unjust laws that came to be through illegal acts are crimes and should be treated as such.

A massive amount of people would have voted for that, if the level of indoctrination currently is any indication. I've had to look really funny at people who answer "yes" to the question "Do you really believe that someone's great-grandchildren should be able to live off something done a century ago?" an awful lot over the past few years.

yeah.. if the perpetrator was some dude in a basement and had sold the songs and lied about the license then that dude would be on the hook for tens of millions - in that context 18 million isn't that much, really.

yeah.. if the perpetrator was some dude in a basement and had sold the songs and lied about the license then that dude would be on the hook for tens of millions - in that context 18 million isn't that much, really.

This newfangled American notion of "damages" seems to be quite damaged on its own if $18M is supposed to be an adequate compensation for not having payed $20 per month for a few years, for whatever reason it happened. If I stopped, for example, paying for a car, I'd be in trouble but I don't think that someone would come and say "now that you didn't pay us $5000, you owe us $1B".

$250,000 per song or something like that? And this is willful commercial infringement, not personal use.

They're not going for criminal copyright violation, just civil copyright violation so 120 songs * $150,000 = $18 million. Even the statutory minimum is 120 * $750 = $90,000 if they're found guilty which sounds quite good compared to $20/month (if that's what she'd normally be paid per the contract).

Here's what'll happen: MediaNet will find a way to press the case on and on beyond the plaintiff's resources, and will then settle for a bit more than the $20/month the plaintiff would've been getting, with a confidentiality agreement.

'Cause that's how law works when it's corporations versus individuals. Equal, but not egalitarian.

It's going to be quite hard to weasel out of the fact that they conveniently stopped paying her royalties right after date that the termination notice was sent as documented in the complaint and yet claim at the same time that they never received such a notice.

My younger brother used to play in multiple local bands, but has moved on to equipment rental, sound engineering, and booking for local bands because he wanted them to get more than $20 a gig {and it's a service not available locally}. People forget that you can have $20k+ on the stage in equipment easily and that it requires maintenance. Recently he has been angry about a bitter ex-bandmate underbidding bookings so much that the bands he is booking are paying to play.

More than likely, the $20 "advance" was a trap. If Mann had deposited the $20 payment, her opponent could have demonstrated that the expired contract wasn't expired, as evidenced by the payment that was accepted. Returning it was the right thing to do.

In my (admittedly pessimistic) scenario they don't have to prove anything, though, they just have to make the case run long enough that a settlement becomes preferable. Surprise witnesses, requests for extra time, copious and un-necessary filings... if they can find a judge who's willing to put up with it, they can spin the case out long enough to "win" a settlement rather than a decision against them.

I'd be more than willing to donate $50 every few months to her continuing shit kicking. All I ask is that my name is listed as a donor,yes I'm not afraid of being listed on a no fly or no something list.

I don't understand why. They sold songs they didn't have legal rights to.

If any of us had done that, we'd have *AA lawyers hammering on our doors. So why in hell should a media company be given anything less than the full penalty for this?

But somehow an incompetent company who can't keep tabs on what they're licensed to sell is only going to be pursued for civil violations?

That makes no sense to me at all.

The *AA lawyers would only have been able to go after you for civil copyright infringement. Criminal copyright infringement means there is the chance of going to jail and having a criminal record. Only the federal government (U.S.) can go after you for criminal copyright infringement, and they seldom do. Civil copyright infringement is where the owner of the copyright goes after you for damages (or "statutory damages"). They can't put you in jail in a civil case, but they can take your money.

"Mann's representative is said to have sent a termination notice in 2005"

I am assuming that Mann's representative sent the termination notice in some way that requires notarized acceptance that is recorded (in other words, someone at MediaNet had to sign to say that the notice had been received) and that the receipt notification was returned to Mann's representative, who kept the original and can produce it on demand.

If not, MediaNet will probably say "hmm, we have no record of it, looks like it got lost in

Actually no it wouldn't have expired. it has "automatic two-year extensions unless terminated by either party."

So, unless she can prove they received the termination, the contract continues uninterrupted indefinitely.

Now, you are correct that that still means they may owe her some royalties that they did not provide. The fact that the royalties stopped shortly after her termination letter definitely would seem to indicate that they received it. However, that would still need to be proven in court. Suspicio

If not, MediaNet will probably say "hmm, we have no record of it, looks like it got lost in the mail", with probably little or no paper/electronic trail to contradict that, aside from them collecting royalties on the playlist and not distributing that to the artist.

No, they have a clear paper trail of emails between them and MusicNet. It's in their complaint. Yeah, yeah. You didn't RTFA.

No, they have a clear paper trail of emails between them and MusicNet. It's in their complaint. Yeah, yeah. You didn't RTFA.

Actually, I did read the article. And the actual complaint. At no point in those readings did I find anything to suggest that there had been any communication from MediaNet to Aimee Mann or her representatives.If I missed a paragraph, I am sure you would be willing to point out that specific point.

Plaintiff's representstion... sent to MeriaNet written notice of Plaintiff's intention to terminate the License agreement on February 10, 2005 (the "Termination Notice"). (A true and correct copy of the Termination is attched hereto as Exhibit C and incorporated herein by reference).

Did you actually read exhibit C?
I did, and it does not say they would like to terminate, it says

From musicNet : Hope youre well...

Its been a while since we last spoke, but I wanted to circle back on the licensing of the Aimee Mann catalog.
Are you till overseeing that iniiative, and if not could you please direct me to whoever might be.

From Leslie Wallake : I still have a handle and ill put the file to see where we left off. It may be that the client does not want legal time spent on this if too little

Yes I did. The termination is the very last email dated February 10, 2005 from Exhibit C as pointed out in the quote I posted. It seems you're either intentionally being dense or stupid since it's quite clear what they were refering to. MediaNet seemed to have understood as well anise they stopped paying royalties after it was sent.

In what way? What agreement are they speaking of? How do we know they were not negotiating some other contract at the time?
Pursue to many people in English is something forward looking not backwards looking.

Thaylin has the right point of this argument. The emails do not say "Terminate the contract". I don't even know if email is officially recognized as a legal notice of intent to terminate. I don't accept it as legally binding. In the contracts I have with customers, the termination clause specifies either a printed-on-paper notice or face-to-face meeting. Nothing fancy -- a single sentence with proper signature, or a five second verbal exchange would suffice (and has sufficed).

Also you even quote from the first email asking about the licensing contract with respect to her music. How can you be confused that the email chain was about the licensing agreement? Again, you're either extraordinarily dense or dumb since it's plain English what was under discussion.

Again, it is not clear that she wants to stop the current contract. they may be wanting to do another deal, with another agreement. You dont know, you are making logical leaps that require way more evidence than in those emails.